Amazing Grace, Part 1 - Acts 16:19-34

Verse 31 and they said believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved you and your household as it the lecture, no religious mumbo-jumbo no car design. Nothing about how his parents raised them no self-image death. No exhortation toward some Sacramento some system of religion. No requirement of baptism, the church ladies and gentlemen is not even mentioned here believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. When Paul and Silas in prison. God used them to bring salvation to their jailer that was really profession that he was likely a cruel man, but the change in that man's life was dramatic.

This is wisdom for the heart, and today we go to our vintage wisdom archives from 1997 to bring you this two-part series called amazing Grace amazing Grace is our theme today and were glad you joined us. Open your Bible to ask 16 Steven David brings you today's lesson from God's call in front of the slave girl who had been the voice of the Python predicting future events through the God Apollo by means of the servants the Python which was their symbol. This was the religion of Philippi and much of Europe. The confrontation took place in acts chapter 16, where Paul commanded the demon to leave this girl and immediately the demon exited and Luke inserts a little humor and a sense of profit exit were given to the slave masters.

As a result of this girls demonic insight that exorcism created and asked low vision that rippled throughout this entire city. Most believe that her masters were priests from the temple Apollo and Paul and Silas had the pocket of Apollo, as it were, and it's all right you know to pray down by the Riverside all right talked about the Lord. It's it's okay to do the things that you we people due to the need of Christ. That's okay, but don't impact the bottom line.

Don't get in the way of profitability don't go against the corporate grain.

Paul and Silas of Rob the coffers of Apollo was temple and the priests will certainly not stop it. Anything less than an explosion of anglers pick our story back up there with verse 19 and when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone. They seize Paul and Silas and dragged him into the marketplace before the authorities and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates.

They said these men are throwing our city in the confusion being Jews and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe being Romans and the crowd rose up together against them in the chief magistrates tore their roads off them.

Paul and Silas, that is, and proceeded to order them to be beaten with Rod in order to get the picture here the marketplace or the Agoura was the open forum in the city as it was in many cities of this day. It's where a lot of things took place dramas, speeches, political debates and also crimes were discussed and the verdict rendered in the Agoura they have excavated Philippi and have been able to excavate the podium and the raised platform with the two stairways leading a beachside in the city of Philippi work. Paul and Silas once stood the can imagine that there was one podium. The two seats Roman law dictated that there had to be to magistrates and they would render their verdict and after their verdict was rendered.

The what is translated in my text, policeman, or literally look, tourers, officers, Latin lit doors.

I would administrate the punishment fact that Latin gives us our English expression you got your links as you. You took your reading that comes literally out of the practice as these link doors would administrate the beating. The link doors. I found it interesting to learn that the symbol of their office was a bundle of rods with an ax protruding from the center and the bundle of rods was tied about with a red band cul-de-sac.

She Mussolini will resurrect this symbol. Years later, for his sachets are his fascist party as they ultimately inflict pain and suffering upon the Jew. Well, the Jews during the Holocaust were not the first to suffer. Certainly the Jews are suffering here is Paul and Silas suffer a beating from the hands or rods of the link doors and now their backs are swollen and bleeding masses of tissue and lacerated skin that is verse 23 and when they had inflicted many blows upon them. They threw them in the prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely and he, having received such command threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks that the Bible does not exaggerate. And so you did a picture here of this this callous prison warden who will treat Paul and Silas like hardened criminals is told the guard them and he will now throw them into the inner prison that is the maximum security section of the prison.

This is the dungeon you can render the whole. This is where those hardened criminals would be placed and then on top of that, this callous individual places their feet in stocks so that now they can curl up on their side and sleep through the night.

They certainly can lie on their backs, which is what they have to do because their backs are bleeding their beaten, so he treats them in this fashion and I imagine this would be a miserable night and as I sort of tried to enter the scene myself. I'd ask myself the question I want to ask you, what would you do now you know the rest of the story and opaque at any to stop what would you do now fumble around in your calendar for the name of your lawyer. Demand your rights are usually in the night, shout obscenities that he had a talk with us suddenly absent God led you here in the city.

Now you're in the whole here in the dungeon.

Let's find out what they did.

Verse 25 at about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them that they were imagine this loss of blood hunger. Terrible thirst, a rat infested dungeon and can you imagine some kind of conversation I must've gone on between Paul and Silas Paglia doing well Silas, I was sitting here, remembering, I remembered the words of our Lord when he said, Blessed are you when men persecute you, for my sake, for great will your reward be in heaven. What that means is Silas. We are fulfilling what Jesus Christ said would happen, and because of that he's promised to begin storing up great reward for us one day because we have been persecuted for the name that we hold to what our relationship to the Savior. I have no solace can think of anything better to do than any praying and singing sakes I went there.

Paul what you say we say and so they prayed that is, they offered they cast their burden on him and they say they cast their worship on him in the prison walls now will Apco with the sounds of newly composed hymns from this early church. They will begin singing in harmony is sort of resonating around. We know the because the prisoners can hear going through that prison emanating from the dungeon. They expect a share of those hardened prisoners coming from the dungeon blasphemy incurred saying in a wagon and shouting, but there hearing a duet. How do you sing midnight to give you a couple of things to add. You don't sing without an active compliance. Paul and Silas Newton the God was in control, so the this could not have happened without God's permission. So in order to sing with God allowed such a thing requires compliance with when God happens to be doing right. It also involves mature character. Galatians 5 tells us that the fruit the developing ministry the spirit within us produces love what joy joy could be defined as contented composure. Regardless of maybe you're here and you're in this midnight hour, differing circumstances, but you're here, it might be physical illness, pain, difficult circumstances of some sort. Maybe it's betrayal by close friends or abandon by a friend or maybe even us. Maybe your midnight is the ridicule of unsaved relatives to mock you or coworkers who slight you.

Maybe it's the simple absence, as it were of the heavenly father. Would you ever consider singing in a time like that humanity was easier for Paul, the sing because Silas was with you I think it probably was during the dungeon together and so they buoyed one another's faith when I happen to believe that the church family should do the same thing. That is when we get together, you know are singing does our worshiping does it sort of buoys the faith of all of us around each other. The writer of Hebrews said that we provoke one another. We encourage one another in the love and good works by the meeting of ourselves together, if we can indeed make something of consecutive events as they appeared in this narrative. It wasn't until midnight Paul and Silas began to say, you know that just made me wonder. I wonder if it took him that long before they could.

Maybe they had a conversation with each other.

That was a little more frustrating little more anxious. They were meant, but maybe somehow is the time ticked away as it reached the darkest hour of the night, but maybe after having a few words with the Lord in those prayers. They were finally able comply surrender, submit to a sovereign God that had led them there to place them in this deep dark and then they could sing of their love will you back in the text.

It's interesting to me that it is only after this demonstration of prayers that you have a demonstration of power you see they were praising God in advance and that's what you have to do in that dark hour, don't you, you have to magnify the Lord and midnight, which means that you honor and worship him without having an answer.

It was then at that point. The text tells us that suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken.

That implies to us that it is only the prison house not the entire city of the region. It is of God has that prison house and is sovereign hand and now you just start shaking it and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were unfastened. Now imagine this number too quickly.

When I heard this in Sunday school and church. Think about this.

Imagine it's midnight at a state penitentiary in North Carolina over the own Hillsboro Street suddenly the building begins to violently shake and then all of a sudden the security system works in reverse, so that now all the gates wide open and all the doors open wide and all that's left for this prisoner, including yourself, to run an escape is just a brief – in the dark.

That's what was happening here. Verse 27 and when the jailer had been roused out of his sleep a hole in the vinegar that tells us a lot about ME. He slept through the concert is little dwelling. We know would be attached to the prison house and because the prisoners were all able to hear this man was also able to hear, but this callous prison warden couldn't care less what those folks were singing from the dungeon. Maybe stuff cotton in his ears, but he would go to sleep. It would take an earthquake to rouse him from his slumber. Ladies and gentlemen.

His descendents live among us today.

Maybe you're praying for an earthquake to occur in the life of someone you know maybe it is you that needs an earthquake to row you from your spiritual slumber. Willard's yard him out of bed. He looks down the hallway and maybe out a window and he sees the prison house doors wide open. Verse 27 letter parts as he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escape will why would that cause them to want to kill himself, because the Roman code of Justinian declared that of the prison warden allowed criminals to escape that he would suffer the sentence that his prisoners had been delivered. That tells us then that men were in this prison house condemned to die. There were men on death row.

Here, because they had escaped under his administration.

He would now suffer their penalty. He would die rather than drag it out the long court proceeding and public humility all just take care of it now in his old man.

This man filled with himself unable to be jarred by the gospel, but now realizing he staring death in the face takes his sword and is about to fall on and that moment the Bible tells us.

Verse 28.

The pool cried out with a loud voice saying to yourself, no, for we are all here so we called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear.

He fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out.

He said serves what must I do to be day ladies and gentlemen, this is the greatest question anybody could ever ask the jailer and heard about the priest evidently had heard about the slave girl.

We know that because he uses the same Greek word for salvation that this lame girl in use when she announced that they were bringing way of salvation. He evidently heard about the exorcism he had evidently heard the news that these men supposedly followed a God that had greater authority that Apollo he could have cared less, until well I have to do to get what you have because you have something that I don't have what must I do to be saved. John Taylor Smith was the honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria and the chaplain general of the British Army during World War I.

John Smith is to ask all the candidates for the chaplaincy basically the same question and he's being interviewed in a let his interview speak itself. I would ask them now.

I want you to show me how you would deal with the man he would say to this candidate for the chaplaincy. We will suppose that I am a soldier and I've been wounded on the field of battle. I have three minutes to live, and I am afraid to die because I do not know Christ, tell me how can I be saved and die with the assurance that all is well with my soul.

He told the interviewer if the applicant began to beat around the bush in Hammond Hall and talk about the church and the ordinances and so on. I would say that I will never know. I have only three minutes to live, tell me what I must do to be saved as long as John Taylor Smith was chaplain general Alyssa candidate had the answer that question. He did not become a chaplain in the Army. My friend, you can graduate from some rather prestigious seminaries in our country not know the answer that question their pulpits filled the day in our city and our country with men who cannot answer that question meant hard work this in that document the church in all sorts signed this, you have three minutes to lab because it's the greatest question the world anybody could ever ask the answers. The most important answer you'll ever hear.

And I don't how many people I talked to in this church in their homes had the delight and privilege of praying receive Christ. I could tell you raised in church religion did nothing but muddy. It church did nothing but confuse it. But clearly the confusion verse 31 and they said believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved you and your household as it no lecture, no religious mumbo-jumbo no card to sign nothing about how his parents raised them no self-image test. No exhortation toward some Sacramento some system of religion.

No requirement of baptism, the church ladies and gentlemen is not even mentioned here believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved you and your household now and suggest this answer provides us with several wonderful things. Let's take longer than three minutes to just explain the number one Paul's answer provides first of all of the simplest invitation. What must I do to be say in the text tells us they answered as if they said to you want to do anything. Jesus Christ is done at all. All you have to do is place your faith in him alone. Verse 32 tells us they spoke the word of the Lord to him, together with all that were in his house. They evidently explained what it meant. Believe what faith was all about, but it's the simplest invitation because it's an invitation not to do anything but to receive the finished work of Jesus Christ. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of praying with a gentleman in his dining room, raised in the church and he said to me as I finished, I did know was that simple is what Paul reiterated in Romans if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works for if it were, on the basis of works that it would not be grace and grace would not be grace. Other people would say well that's that's a little too demeaning. You know a good person's surely God will put that toward my counter never killed anybody. You telling me that that nothing I've done is acceptable.

That's exactly right. You are not saved until you come to the point where you recognize the fact that not only can you do nothing, but you have nothing to do that would be acceptable in that's why the Bible calls us sinners. Not a very nice word, but that's a you and I are sinners. Sinners need a Savior. And that's why the perfect one is the perfect Savior and that's why this invitation you'll notice is exclusive in its destination.

He is the only Savior believe in the Lord Jesus, that the politically correct language of our day has given way to tolerance that doesn't then appreciate the exclusive nature of Christianity's truth truth. By the way is exclusive when as a kid in math class I learned that truth the hard way. There's only one right answer and I never got credit for 2+2 = 4 and 1/2. I was either all, right or I was all what role Jesus Christ says I am the only way double positive in the original language. The only truth. The only life and if you have any question about whether or not he is exclusive in his definition of salvation, he says, and no one comes to the father except by me. You are either all right in him or all wrong and anybody else including yourself.

I found it interesting to read an article that talks about one of the religions that sweeping the West, especially the tolerant nature of this religion is finding its way into the hearts of many in the Hollywood establishment tolerance is the spiritual correct language of today in Buddhism is making its way in sector two movies. I understand one of them entitled seven years in Tibet that basically characterizes Buddhism as a compassionate religion and of course the unspoken message is that that is juxtaposed to Christianity which is intolerant of you don't think they have an agenda. I found it very interesting to read that the director who was being interviewed said that after each days shooting the Tibetan monks who had traveled to the set would pray every day over the cast and the set and the message of the movie and then they would lead the crew and the cast in Buddhist songs you say Stephen is only movie all know it isn't.

It is the evangelistic mission of the East to win its new mission field called the West and the tolerant nature of our public is open and vulnerable to that religion which says we are tolerance and we are open. They are also without hope, because their only hope is that you can somehow be reincarnated into a better life form and be reincarnated again and again and again and again and again in Southern California alone.

This article went on to say a Buddhist temple is constructed and completed every two months earlier in the book of acts in chapter 4, Peter was preaching and he said there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must say. Third, you are given an everlasting promise believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be say fourthly hear from this passage. The greatest legacy pulses believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved you and your household. Now a lot of people stop and come up with all kinds of covenant promises for household salvation.

All you have to do is just a great putter.

There and they spoke the word of the Lord to him, together with all who were in his house. In other words, everyone in this man's household will hear the gospel that night. Later on in this paragraph, learn, and they all believe in the gospel they hear his wife if he had one his children if he had.

Then they all heard the gospel and this is the greatest legacy you can give your family dear Sir, the greatest legacy you can leave is not how much money you had how many square feet your house had the weather not your children and your wife knew you knew the gospel and should your child come to you and ask you the way to heaven. You can answer that needle at the say call Pastor so-and-so your children hear you pray for them.

Have you ever prayed with them.

Do they know that you know Jesus Christ that's the greatest legacy. I know personally if I led 10,000 people to faith in Christ in the city that could not compare the four kid understand his jailer once his household here, because verse 32 tells us he takes these criminals and was dining room and he does something else for 33 took them that very hour of the night and wash their wounds and immediately was baptized. He and all his household. Can you see this guy who could care less about people and all of a sudden you say, Paul, your back looks terrible.

Silas all you guys really must be hurting. Would you mind if I just clean you up and he goes and he gets a basin of water and totality very gingerly begins to clean these guys this man is a different man. He's been saved. I want you to look at the church at Philippi.

This congregation down by the Riverside growing in that we have this cultured wealthy lady who way with three forks and three's wounds and all that stuff. Now you have a slave girl whose only recently been delivered by the power of Christ and now you throw in that mix is callous, all guys turn into a teddy very probably still hasn't stopped smiling since time when he discovered the way of salvation. The church is now flying the flag on the continent of Europe, ladies, the flag is the flag of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is the flag of amazing Grace's amazing amazing Grace. Grace that God extended to early church in Europe is the same grace that God extends to you today.

Have you responded to God's offer. If not maybe today will be the day that you join with all of us who are the recipients of God's amazing grace.

This is wisdom for the heart with Stephen Devi. We've gone back to our vintage wisdom archives to bring you a two-part series entitled, amazing Grace, Stephen first preached this message back in 1997, but the truth of God's word rings just as true today. Well, as we begin moving through this new year were going to have a lot in store for you and I want to make sure that you receive our news and updates. If you're not on our mailing list and don't receive our monthly newsletter entitled heartbeat.

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